Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 Package and Demo

[bammer150]

Are they still available?

[shaurz]

@bammer150 Not sure if that's a serious question, this is an ancient computer from the 80s. You can get them on eBay.

[CamdenBloke]

I carried one of these around in high school (late 90s). My dialup ISP had the trs100 termcap entry so I got the acoustic coupler and using the cordless phone would go on the internet from the back yard, using lynx and pine. I hooked it up to a school payphone to do the same but I got in trouble and was made to stop because they thought that I was hacking the phone systems.

[atarileaf]

I just got a 102 recently. Is there a way to hook up a cable from the RS-232 to the serial port on a modern PC to get programs from the PC to the 102?

[shaurz]

@atarileaf Sorry I haven't really looked in to this yet.

[dronespace]

I think my dad had the exact same model, I remember him using it and for a while he let me mess around on it. If I recall correctly, if the power supply was taken out, it lost all its power?

[shaurz]

@dronespace You can put batteries in so it can be used without mains power.

[dronespace]

@shaurz

Ah yes forgot about that. We also had a printer that went with it as well.

[poopskinTheLiar]

For it's day, that thing is downright diminutive!

[WindowsLover6767]

10:36 Of course it's full! It has like 2.5KB Of memory!

Still, I WANT ONE! :(

[heroineworshipper]

+ passive matrix, reflective LCD

[heroineworshipper]

Behold the power of through hole components & AA batteries.

[gmdinformation]

I saw a demonstration once where a guy dropped one of these things from shoulder height onto a concrete floor, then picked it up and turned it on. Worked perfectly.

Bill Gates, BTW, has said that the last piece of code he ever wrote was for this laptop's OS.

[unicyclevideos]

It can operate on the batteries for quite a while too. They don't just back up the memory. The memory is good even after the batteries die.

[shaurz]

@unicyclevideos Thanks for the insight!

[unicyclevideos]

It can operate on the batteries for quite a while too. They don't just back up the memory. The memory is good even after the batteries die.

[unicyclevideos]

Great keyboards.

I used this for so many projects. The coolest was a Bulletin Boards System (BBS) originally designed for modems that I modified to use packet radio devices so ham radio operators could have wireless e-mail. Yes. In 1985, when I was 15 yrs old. On a TRS-80 model 100. We got a lot out of those Model 100s considering the power of modern computers.

[unicyclevideos]

I had one in high school. I modified a pair of modem cable to have alligator clips. I would tap into the band phone from the phone box outside the school to check my e-mail each morning before school. No one knew to question what I was doing and I would stand in front of the cables and lean against the wall as my e-mail downloaded. :-O

[unicyclevideos]

BCR is short for Bar Code Reader. There was an optional Bar Code Reader that would hook up and all scanning of Bar Codes. You could load information and I think programs as well. The expansion port hooked up to giant box with disk drive and external monitor support. I had the external box, the green screen monitor and I had the smaller portable disk drive that hooked up to the serial (rs-232) port.

[chucknorris687]

Like a fuckin kid on x-mas! lol take it easy guy, or should I say mate?

[shaurz]

@chucknorris687 Heh did I come across that excited?

[B17MIKE]

I went through grad school with this. It was awesome at the time. thanks for posting!

[shaurz]

@B17MIKE What did you use it for?

[B17MIKE]

@shaurz '88-'92 for taking notes. It was "the latest and greatest". I transferred my notes to my desktop with the 300 bps modem. Saved it on a 5 1/4 floppy. Good times!

[shaurz]

@B17MIKE That's really cool. Thanks for sharing! (I was 2 years old in 1988 ;-)

[FuyuAkiWorld]

looks cool. But really has no use today. It's awesome if youre a collector, but all it does can be done on a modern computer. but still, cool. and nice review.

[shaurz]

@FuyuAkiWorld I must admit, it is pretty useless. I just thought it looked cool.

[FuyuAkiWorld]

@shaurz yeah, it's one of the coolest looking computers I've ever seen! They need to make computers that look like that.

[3ytc]

Still have mine that I bought when it was just released, I also have the external floppy drive for this machine.

[daafies2]

awesome little machine.

[ForViewingOnly]

Great to see the model 100, I've got one of these on my vintage computer wish list. I'm not too much into "unboxing" so the 1st minute of the video was a bit painful for me, but it was interesting to see it in use. Amazing, I always thought that the Sinclair (Cambridge) Z88 was one of the first laptops, but the model 100 beat it by 5 years!

[shaurz]

@ForViewingOnly When I learnt about this computer I was quite impressed that it existed so long ago and had to get one. I understand that unboxing can be boring :-)

[DLiberator78]

Nice pickup! I remember hearing about these back in the day and see the ads in computer mags. Did you get it from a UK seller or was it overseas? When I check for these on eBay they are usually from the States. This is a neat piece of kit.

[shaurz]

@DLiberator78 It was from a UK seller. I've had a saved search on ebay for a while, and they do appear a few times a year.

[mariosonic190]

Heh, that's a cool system. One of the very first laptop computers ever if I recall correctly, coming out a bit after the Epson HX-20, the first one ever.

Do you have any plans to get any of the more well known TRS-80 Colour Computer systems? I've got a CoCo 2 and a CoCo 3, and they're pretty nice machines to work with; they have a very nice and easy to use version of BASIC. =)

[shaurz]

@mariosonic190 I don't have any plans to get a CoCo yet (I bought the Model 100 because it's a really cool portable), I don't really have enough room for any more micros. TI-99/4A and an MSX machine are higher priority for me.

[RPKGameVids]

Most of the keys look 100% identical to the keys on my Atari 800XL keyboard.

[shaurz]

@RPKGameVids They are quite similar but the layout is different.

[amurphy245]

Wow that thing is cool.

[shaurz]

@amurphy245 That's why I bought it :-) It's pretty rare-ish, pops up on ebay occasionally, I won it in an auction for £26 including postage. I've had a saved search for about a year and 16 have been listed.

[lostSUND4Y]

Can't recall seeing this computer before, or at least i don't think so. Either way it looks to be in great shape.

BASIC sure brings back alot of memories. =)

[shaurz]

@lostSUND4Y Yeah it's in good nick. I removed the stickers that the previous owner had put over the memory battery switch with sticky stuff remover.

Many years ago I used BBC BASIC, OPL and QBASIC. Then one day I got serious, learned C and Python and now I work as a programmer.